


all my sins need holy water

by plinys



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2018, The Framework Universe (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 22:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13600041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: They call her the Doctor, a code name picked by the infamous resistance, for the woman that was always by Madame Hydra’s side.She finds that she rather likes it.(Or, a role reversal where Jemma is "the Doctor" instead of Fitz.)





	all my sins need holy water

**Author's Note:**

> me, dropping one shield fic in my sea of dctv fic for the most rare of rare pairs: like aeee happy femslash feb y'all

It starts at the Academy.

She doesn’t know it at the time. 

Doesn’t realize the significance of the moment. 

The significance of the woman that sits to her left during orientation. 

She is odd - then again, to be admitted to the SHIELD Sciences Academy one had to have at least  _ one  _ PhD and anyone with one this young was likely to be  _ odd  _ \- but there was something about her… Something in particular, a feeling that Jemma could never put properly into words even years later, that had caused her to turn in her seat away from Professor Weaver’s orientation speech, and instead focus on the woman beside her.

Beautiful, in a way that could not entirely be understood.

Almost too beautiful for a woman of science. 

Jemma’s gaze does not go unnoticed, and when she turns to meet Jemma’s eyes, she somehow seems to have only grown more beautiful, almost eternally, as if her very purpose was to draw people’s eyes in. 

“Ophelia,” she says, sliding her hand across the space between them.

For a second Jemma stares at the hand in confusion. 

A moment of hesitation.

A moment where the whole universe seems to wait with baited breath to see if she will take the hand before her. As if all of history and all of time depends on it. She swears for a second that there is nothing but silence, no other students, no professor talking, no inevitable ticking of time.

For a moment there’s nothing but Ophelia’s hand hovering there in the space between them. 

She crosses the space and meets Ophelia’s hand with her own.

Ophelia’s hands are cold to the touch. 

“Jemma.”

That’s where it all begins.

 

*

 

Ophelia had insisted that she was engineering,  _ robots  _ specifically, computer hacking on occasion or when the fancy struck her. There was no reason their research should overlap, no reason they should keep ending up in labs and practicals together.

And yet....

Here they are again. 

“This is an advanced biochem class,” Jemma points out. “You know if you wanted so badly to spend time with me…”

Ophelia is pouring over Jemma’s notes. Searching through what she’s found with purpose and somehow dissatisfied with whatever she finds. Jemma crosses over to her, knowing that she had taken nothing but detailed notes during the lectures and that as such there should be no reason for Ophelia’s expression.

Certainly no reason for Ophelia’s look and yet…

“Those aren’t my class notes,” Jemma says, staring down at the papers. It seems obvious to say so. They’re so clearly not. They’re something else. A personal project - a  _ secret  _ project - that Jemma had been working on, research on the  Inhuman threat that had only been rising since the Cambridge Incident… 

She must have left them out.

Must have made a mistake.

No wonder Ophelia had looked so confused. 

“Here let me get you-”

“No,” Ophelia says, sharply her hand covering the papers holding them in place. Though her voice drops to a softer tone a second later, “Tell me more about this?”

“It’s not really that interesting,” Jemma insists.

But when Ophelia looks up there’s a curious look in her eyes. One that Jemma doesn’t entirely understand. One that makes Jemma want to spill all of her secrets. One that Jemma cannot deny.

So when, Ophelia insists again, something almost like desperation in her voice, “Tell me more about your research, Jemma.”

She finds herself unable to refuse.

“Well, it starts on the molecular level.”

 

*

 

“You should know more than this,” Ophelia mutters under her breath.

Something Jemma is certain that she’s not supposed to hear, but she does. She hears everything in this lab. The space that belongs to them, even though only professors were supposed to have private labs. 

She still has not questioned  _ how  _ Ophelia came by this space.

Too grateful to question the hand that provides her with all of this - a space to conduct her research, endless funding, free time that she had no expected to have at an academy such as this one.

Too grateful to question the woman that looks at her like she holds all the secrets to the universe.

Ophelia is always there.

Always in her space.

Always watching her.

It might have felt unnerving were it anyone else, but there’s something about Ophelia’s presence that grounds her. That takes her self doubts and worries away. That makes the whole world slow down. 

They’re looking over her notes, more inhuman research, when Jemma does it.

Gives in to the impulse within her and crosses the space between them, leaning over the lab table to press her lips against Ophelia’s. Her lips are just as cold as her hands, and unmoving. It takes a second for Jemma to register that, and when she does she pulls back suddenly.

An apology already on her lips. 

“What was that,” Ophelia asks, sounding genuinely confused.

As if she did not know.

As if no one had ever kissed her.

As if she had no concept of kissing. 

“I kissed you,” Jemma says, stating the obvious, even though it seems silly. A part of her seems to insist that she needs to. That maybe that will clear up the confusion in Ophelia’s gaze. For once, her graceful beauty, her nearly lifeless perfection, seems frozen, replaced with something else.

Something more human than any expression Jemma had ever seen on Ophelia’s features before. 

“I understand that if you’re not interested in girls,” Jemma says quickly, “I don’t suppose most people are, I just assumed-.”

“I don’t know,” Ophelia admits, her confusion still there. “I never-” she starts, then stops, and speaks again, “Can I kiss you again? Just to try it?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

Jemma kisses her again.

This time Ophelia kisses her back.

 

*

 

SHIELD falls.

The Academy falls.

Hydra takes over, and establishes martial law for the protection of greater society, claiming to have the world’s best interests at heart.

She doesn't feel that this is right. Something inside of her says that this is wrong. That this isn’t how things are supposed to go. That Hydra isn’t supposed to win.

“We need to run!”

Ophelia makes no move to run. Instead she simply says, “Take my hand,” lacing their fingers together even as she says the words.

There are alarms blaring. Agents -  _ traitors  _ \- with guns shooting down her fellow trainees. The smell of smoke on the horizon. 

And yet, Ophelia seems to notice none of it.

She just squeezes down on Jemma’s hand, almost a ressurance, with her familiar cold hands. 

“As long as you’re with me they can’t hurt you.”

_ Can’t _ .

Not won’t.

The distinction won’t seem important until years later.

At the time, she can’t focus on Ophelia’s words. Not when there is gunfire all around them.

Shouting and screaming. 

Bleeding and dying. 

Living and rising. 

Ophelia leads her, stepping out of the shadows, and into the light.

While the rest of the world moves around them like they’re not even there.

 

*

 

Her research is being used by Hydra.

The research, that she and Ophelia had spent all those days and hours at the Academy pouring over, was now being used by Hydra not to help people but to…

Ophelia insists that this will help. 

Ophelia insists that this is what she was always meant for.

Ophelia insists that this is how they will make their mark on the world.

Jemma desperately wants to believe it.

After all, why would Ophelia lie to her?

She kisses Ophelia until she stops thinking about it. 

Until the world stops having to make sense. 

Until all that matters is the feeling of Ophelia’s lips on her own. 

Until all that matters is the feeling of Ophelia’s body underneath hers.

Until all that matters is Ophelia.

 

*

 

With Hydra there’s no moral high grounds holding her back. There’s unlimited science. Unlimited answers. She knows that it comes at a cost, zips up the body bag and tries not to think about it.

They were an Inhuman.

They were a threat.

What she was doing was for the greater good… And was she not a scientist? Were scientists not meant for this? For finding out the secrets to the universe. For taking things apart and putting them back together again.

A part of her knows what this really is.

She’s torturing Inhumans in the name of science. 

Technically this is  _ torture _ . 

The woman that she had been before SHIELD fell would have balked at the idea of this. Would have insisted that it was wrong and refused to have anything to do with this. At what cost? The cost of the world, the rest of the world, the  _ human  _ world. 

Technically, this is science.

So Jemma smiles at them, it’s easier to do so now, and says, “Oh, don’t worry, this will only hurt a little.”

 

*

 

Ophelia becomes the Head of Hydra in what seems almost like overnight.

Days, weeks, months - they blur together. But the result is the same. The result is Ophelia standing before her in a penthouse apartment with the Hydra symbol on the wall behind her. A dark green dress, black coat like a cape behind her. 

She’d held a press conference earlier, in front of the entire world, declared Inhumans to be a threat to the world, to their way of life, and assured the concerned crowd that  _ Hydra  _ was doing everything in its power to rid the world of this plague upon it. 

Ophelia had a way with words.

A way with crowds.

She always had. 

It had drawn Jemma in once, now it draws in crowds of Hydra loyalists. Who pledge to  _ Hail Madame Hydra _ . 

The none of them pledge to her the way Jemma does. With knees on hardwood floors, and Ophelia’s hands digging into the side of her piano, white knuckles, voice choking with noises that could almost sound like pleasure or desperation, to a woman that didn’t know her better.

 

*

 

“You’re not human are you?”

Ophelia freezes, standing in front of the mirror.

Her green bathrobe is loosely tied, falling from her shoulders, normally Jemma would aid it in itself journey. But for once she does not. She stands there instead, lingering in the door of the bathroom, where she had been watching Ophelia get ready.

She now watches the stiffness in Ophelia’s body. 

The way she seems not to blink or breathe or move.

Ophelia has done this before. Jemma is all too aware now of too many moments like this one. Though she’s never understood them. Never properly been able to explain what about it unnerved her. 

Until now. 

“I’m not an Inhuman,” Ophelia says after a moment, seeming to come back to herself. She blinks once then once more, meeting Jemma’s gaze through the mirror. “You can test me if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

There’s a steadiness in Ophelia’s voice.

It’s not the answer Jemma was looking. 

“If you’ll allow me to,” she replies

Asking permission. 

Even now.

Even still. 

Even though she does not know what she will do if the results are anything other than human. 

Still, the woman in the mirror does not look afraid. Instead she looks almost relieved, a feeling Jemma cannot entirely understand. Not when a moment before she had been so frozen.

“I’d allow you anything,” Ophelia says, voice back to that comfortable controlled tone, “You must know that by now.”

 

*

 

They call her  _ the Doctor _ . 

A code name picked by the infamous resistance.

For the woman that was always by  _ Madame Hydra _ ’s side. 

She finds that she rather likes it. 

 

*

 

“Watch it.”

He’s one of Ophelia’s  _ attack dogs _ , at least that’s what Jemma has always called them, the Hydra legacies and loyalists that hover by Ophelia’s side working on her secret project, the one that even Jemma isn’t privy to. 

She doesn’t know his name.

Doesn’t care too. 

She hates him all the same. His dreadful Scottish accent, the way he bumps into Jemma’s shoulder as he brushes out of Ophelia’s office, dismissed at the moment of Jemma’s arrival. She watches him for a second as he goes. Back to his cage. 

“I can’t kill him,” Ophelia says, once the door has closed, “But I can have him  _ removed  _ to somewhere else if he’s disturbing you.” 

“I don’t like the way he looks at you,” Jemma admits.

Because that was what had bothered her the most.

The way he looked at Ophelia, like she was a  _ thing _ rather than the reason for the stars being in the sky. 

That and - “He looked familiar.”

Ophelia’s face looks cross at that. Annoyed almost. As if she had ever had the notion to be.

But in an instant Ophelia dismisses it with a shake of her head, “He was the Academy with us, perhaps you two took a class together.” 

“Perhaps,” Jemma agrees absentmindedly, though that does not explain the nagging feeling in her mind. That the man that had bumped into her was supposed to hold some significance. 

“I assume you had something more important you wished to talk to me about?”

Jemma snaps out of her thoughts to meet Ophelia’s gaze. 

Yes, she had a reason for coming here. How could she have forgotten?

Jemma smiles at Ophelia, the special smiles, she saves just for moments such as these.

“More so, I was hoping to distract you from your work.”

“You’ve always been a distraction, Jemma.”

 

*

 

There’s blood on her hands when she kisses Ophelia, pulling her in mere seconds after her team had taken the latest subject - the latest  _ corpse _ \- away. 

She focuses on Ophelia, who is in front of her real and alive.

Not like the man that had touched her hand moments before his death, showing Jemma a vision of fire and pain, of a scream that echoed down a hallway that was almost familiar, as a body she had once mapped every inch of turned to ash before her very eyes. 

There’s is blood on Ophelia’s cheeks, blood that had been on Jemma’s hands, that stains her work and her lab and the very essence of her soul. 

Blood that she washes off her hands each night until her skin is rubbed red and raw.

Blood that will collect around their shower drain hours later when Ophelia reluctantly lets the water run of her.

Blood that smears across her cheek once more when Jemma leans in for another desperate kiss.

 

*

 

From Ophelia’s bed Jemma can see the city out the window.

Their city.

The one that belongs to them. 

In a  _ world  _ that belongs just to them. 

Ophelia stands by the window, the black lace of her panties the one piece clothing on her, Jemma watches her back muscles flex, watches the reflection of Ophelia in the glassed surface.

It always stuck her as odd that Ophelia was never one to bask in the afterglow.

Then again, she never had been one to  _ enjoy  _ what they did between the sheets much either. 

Jemma knew that. 

She knew that the loud noises Ophelia made during sex were most often fake, that the only time she ever sounded as though she felt something at all was when Jemma hurt her, squeezing down on her wrist too sharply or digging her nails down into her hips. 

She never mentioned it.

There was a lot of things Jemma never mentioned about them. 

Better not knowing, then hearing a lie. 

“What if I told you there was another world,” Ophelia says carefully and slowly after a long moment, “A world that we could go to and rule together?”

“Don’t we already rule the world,” Jemma asks. It seems like a silly question. Almost a joke. Not the reality. Certainly she had never before in her life pictured that she would be here. In the bed of the woman that ruled the world. 

Ophelia does not answer right away.

So, Jemma wraps herself in the white bedsheet, tying it around her body as she carefully rises from the bed, treating the sheet like an elegant dress rather than the rumpled reminder of what they had been doing minutes before.

She moves so that she is standing beside Ophelia, looking out at the city lights properly, or at least pretending to.

Her eyes are more occupied with the pale reflection of Ophelia in the glass.

She leans there against her for a moment, her head resting against Ophelia’s shoulder. “What more could we want than what we already have?”

For the first time, since that moment Ophelia held her hand out to Jemma at the Academy, there is something like doubt in Ophelia’s voice. 

“To live.”

  
  



End file.
